My Thoughts on Faith, Theology, Politics, and Government

Menu

I Just Need To Give Myself Grace

As one raised in a legalistic atmosphere, I greatly appreciated this post at the Resurgence Blog.

We all create rules to follow that make us feel like we’re closer to God. This is a sin called legalism. We add rules that God doesn’t ask us to follow, feel good when we do them, or bad when we don’t, and in the process we create a new law.

Your laws are a burden

Some people make daily Bible reading into law. They feel justified and holy when they read, but guilty when they don’t. This is messed up because the point of reading the Bible is to draw closer to God, to love him more, understand him better, and have your heart transformed—but it’s easy to take the gift of the Bible and turn it into a burden. It only becomes a burden when you use reading the Bible or any other new law that you create to make you feel righteous, instead of understanding that you are only made righteous by Christ.

You can’t do God’s job

You can often tell someone has created a new law for themselves when they use a phrase like, “I need to give myself grace.”

When you catch yourself saying this in your heart or aloud you need to realize that you’re assuming two things: